Critics for Rossetti Flashcards
(32 cards)
Dinah Roe - Playboy
1973 Playboy - unambiguously pornographic depiction of Laura’s consumption
Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt - Religious reading
In a sense, all of Rossetti’s poetry is deeply religious - concerned always with the relation of this world to the next.
Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt - Religious beliefs of Rossetti
Religious belief for Rossetti both curbed her ambition and offered an escape from the restrictions imposed by her sex
Ray Clueley - Allegory
Allegory against the pleasures of sinful love
Both Shut Out and Goblin Market can be read as allegories for the pleasures of sinful love and the consequences they evoke, most notably in their female characters.
Ray Clueley - Doubling of Laura
Laura is disregarded after her sexual transgressions, much like the rinds of the fruits that she so carelessly throws away.
Jan Marsh - Debate of meaning
Rossetti insisted the poem was not an allegory but not simply a fanciful tale either, and its meaning is subject to debate
Suzanne Williams - Puzzle
playful piece of nonsense or a cryptic puzzle
Suzanne Williams - Mindset
Rossetti has taken a ‘non-confrontational and colonial mindset’ in her depiction of love in The Round Tower
Despite her ‘strong social conscience, her view of the empire is ‘narrow and cliched’
George Norton - Joys of religion
For her constant talk of religion, she seldom spoke of its joys
Simon Avery - Astute questioner
Rossetti is an ‘astute questioner of the contemporary world’, with her poetry confronting the harsh realities of womanhood within Victorian society
Simon Avery - Pre-Raphaelite imagery
Piles up image after image of pre-raphealite paintings
Aline Downey - Religious guilt
Her work alternates between a tone of serene pity and religious guilt
John Hathaway - Sister Louise persona
This poem stands away from many of Rossetti’s other poems where there is less of a clear differentiation between Rossetti and the persona she assumes
John Hathaway - Evocation
Powerful and lyrical evocation of female suffering
Gilbert and Gubar - Innocent domesticity
Lizzie is ultimately led to a heaven of innocent domesticity
there is no friend like a sister
Alice Kirby - Sisterhood
In Goblin Market, she creates a pre-raphealite sisterhood, which didn’t and couldn’t exist in reality
there is no friend like a sister
Rossetti removes any positive depictions of men in her poetry and instead, she creates a ‘pre-raphealite sisterhood’
Gilbert and Gubar - Surrogate selves
Rossetti’s female speakers can be depicted as her ‘surrogate selves to whom she projects her literary anxieties’
From The Antique was not initially published as the bleak depiction of the female condition felt too confrontational for Victorian society. Rossetti’s feelings on womanhood are left ambiguous, as she signed a petition against female suffrage, claiming ‘the highest order is not for both the sexes’ yet she still the dire realities of a woman’s existence.
Alice Kirby - Domestic bliss
The poem’s ending of domestic bliss is, in some respects, the epitome of Coventry Patmore’s ‘The Angel in the House’
Alice Kirby - Artistic Sisterhood
In the rigid Victorian society, there is no place for artistic sisterhood
Simon Avery - Rossetti’s social views
Her views may not be radical, but they are far from conservative
Simon Avery - Winter my Secret
‘playful nature’ and is an ‘intriguing study into the manipulation of power
Richard Redwood - Doll Homes
‘Thousands of such doll-homes’ aligned with Ibsens progressive views
Tom Mole - Echo
A shadow version of reunion is available in dreams
Gothic rewriting of the selfless love of ‘Remember’
Tom Mole - Round Tower
The cliche of ‘not a hope in the world’ raises a religious debate, questioning if they have a hope beyond the world, a supernatural hope
